Poetry and Fantasy--Two Book Releases

I don’t normally use this blog to promote new releases. I’m making the exception for several reasons. Part of it is that you don’t usually see spouses publishing separate books at around the same time. Additionally, the authors are my friends, although I wouldn’t do it for that reason alone. Mostly, I’m doing it because the proceeds from Janine’s book are going to a good cause, and because Mike deserves to be recognized for his first attempt at middle-grade fiction.

Weight of Silence (WordPool Press, 2019) is a poetry collection based on Janine Harrison’s volunteer experiences in Haiti in 2012 and 2017. All of her profits go to the not-for-profit organization Haitian Connection, which assists Haitians—and especially women and children—in need.

Janine’s collection is part personal experience, part history lesson, part cultural reality, and all advocacy for the underpriviledged people of Haiti. Much is lost without the context given by a full poem, and it is impossible to do justice to any of them by quoting a single stanza. Still, I will try my best to give you the flavor of the book. You will have to buy it to get the broader context.

The first example is a verse from a poem called “Izole Chen” (stray dog). In this selection, Janine uses the many homeless dogs that roam the country to give her perspective on Haiti’s politican situation.

Whether in the rural west

or Port-au-Prince,

after darkness descends

packs of dogs become

phantasms of corrupt governments

and revolutionaries,

of armies and

ravaged innocents,

growling both as

predator and prey,

within a slate gray history.

A last yowl

punctures the late night

and I, who lie awake,

mourn a starving brown dog.

The second example comes from Janine’s experience trying to teach English language lessons during Hurricane Sandy. The guest house mentioned in this poem is where Janine, her husband, and her daughter were staying at the time. Titled “Pierre,” the poem pays homage to one student’s dedication to learning even in the most difficult circumstances. It begins with a brief picture of Pierre’s eagerness and then describes the hurricane’s effect on classes during Tuesday and Wednesday. This verse is next:

No class Thursday

anywhere across the country.

Two Haitian teachers and the dean

drove away on Wednesday,

to check on a grandmother

in a local fishing villiage

and have not returned.

A visiting teacher loses roofs

on his family’s home and business

in Cuba and stops smiling—

no airplane to take him home.

Everything in the shabby-chic

Bourbon Street-style guest house

verges on liquifying.

Every odor the old abode

ever imbued resumes.

Electricity at night by generator.

No water for showers.

We host class unoffically

at the guesthouse.

Six students come,

Pierre one,

his homework done and dry.

Life in Haiti can be dark, and many of Janine’s poems reflect that. Since I don’t know who might be reading this blog, I have chosen not to quote the most disturbing ones, but they have their place in this collection, too.

You will learn a lot about Haiti by reading this book. Janine even teaches us about the country’s most notorious leaders by putting a poem’s words in their mouths. But you will have to buy the book to read it.

Two Girls, a Clock, and a Crooked House (Random House Books for Young Readers, 2019) is Michael Poore’s third book but the first one that I would let a tweenager read. The other two are humorous, irreverant, and clearly aimed at adults. His third is also humorous and sometimes irreverant but fits solidly within the middle grade category.

Mike’s book tells of two girls whose travels back in time resolve a problem occuring in the present. Beyond calling it humorous fantasy, it is hard to classify. I could try to compare Mike with Lemony Snicket or Adam Gidwitz, but the comparison would be misleading because Mike has a style all his own. Still, if you like those authors’ voices, you will like Mike’s, too.

Like most books, Two Girls, a Clock, and a Crooked House isn’t perfect. One of the girls is nicknamed “Moo,” and at one point we discover what made her the way she is. I found that event too serious to fit with the lighter tone of the book. I also got confused when Amy and Moo discarded their filthy clothes at the school nurse’s office but somehow retained their hoodies. A bit more detail and explanation during that scene would have smoothed out some bumps later on.

In spite of a few imperfections, Two Girls, A Clock, and a Crooked House is an entertaining read. I recommend it to anyone—adult as well as middle-grade—who enjoys humorous fantasy written for this age group.

__________

Weight of Silence and Two Girls, A Clock, and a Crooked House are available at amazon.com.

The Importance of Mentors

My primary mentor during my law career died earlier this month. William F. Tueting was the first person to hire me as a lawyer, and he advised and guided me through my early years in that position. I hadn’t seen him or even communicated with him since he retired and moved to Utah to be closer to one of his children, but I will never forget him.

I worked at the Chicago Board of Trade as a paralegal/secretary while attending law school at night, and I was still working there when I graduated and received my law license. I ran the arbitration program and had other significant responsibilities, but I was not offered a position as an attorney position.

Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised. The Board of Trade was a boys club at the time, and only one woman had broken the barrier. There were two other women employed in positions that sounded important, but one had no influence and the other didn’t interact with the membership. And there had never been a female attorney on the staff.

I had worked for the then-current general counsel for several years, and I believe he recognized that I was qualified to be an attorney there. I don’t know if he suggested hiring me and was rebuffed or if he didn’t have the courage to even try. In any event, no job was offered, and Bernie himself soon moved on to private practice.

When Bernie left, the legal staff was overhalled. The Board of Trade hired a new general counsel, and Bill Tueting came on board as Associate General Counsel.

The new general counsel assigned me to provide legal advice to the investigative staff and gave me legal responsibilities similar to those of a new lawyer. However, he did not give me either the salary or the title. Instead, he characterized it as an experiment to see how well I handled the job, justifying his decision by saying he had never worked with me before and wasn’t familiar with my skills. That was true, but I’m guessing that he wasn’t willing to stand up to the powers that be, either.

Jeff also moved me to a desk in the department I was advising. Although I went to Legal Department staff meetings, I didn’t feel like a full member of my own department. But I still had a job, and I wasn’t going to leave it without something better to go to.

Fortunately for me, Jeff didn’t last long and Bill Tueting was promoted to General Counsel. One of Bill’s first moves was to change my title to Attorney and give me a salary to match, making me the first woman lawyer at the Chicago Board of Trade. He also gave me an office in the Legal Department.

Bill told me at the time that “I have always thought of you as an attorney.” I took his statement to mean that he had respected me in that role from the first day we worked together. I continued to experience that respect throughout my legal career, even after I left the Board of Trade.

I could go to Bill with any questions and concerns, and he always listened and provided sound advice. And when I was asked by an influential staff member in another department to render a legal opinion that was contrary to law, I knew Bill would back me up when I refused.

I had three mentors during my legal career, but Bill was the main one. I will be forever grateful for what he did for me.

Mentors are important in any field, and I hope I’ve filled that role in both my legal and writing careers.

That’s the least I can do to thank Bill.

Don't Confuse Omniscient and 3rd Person Points of View

The other day I was watching the game show Common Knowledge when it had a question about point of view. The question went something like this: “Which point of view is it if the narrator knows what every character is thinking?” The choices were A) 1^st person, B) 2^nd person, and C) 3^rd person. I wanted to yell at the TV, “None of them, you idiots. It’s omniscient.” But I didn’t because I never call anyone an idiot even if they can’t hear me.

The host stated that the correct answer was 3^rd person because in that POV a story can have multiple narrators. Yes, it can, but that doesn’t make the original statement true. Even in multiple 3^rd person the current POV character doesn’t know what the other characters are thinking. And we never see inside the heads of the many secondary characters who don’t have their own POV sections.

Given the options, I would have chosen the answer the show was looking for because I would have assumed that they knew it wasn’t 1^st or 2^nd. Still, their wasn’t that unusual an error. Even experienced writers can confuse 3^rd person and omniscient.

I have never written a story using omniscient POV because it is too hard. Yes, you heard me. Some people assume it is easier because you don’t have the limitations of the other POVs, but that’s a trap. I have read my share of books where I can’t tell if the writer is attempting to use omniscient or 3^rd person. If omnisicient POV is done wrong, it looks like a multiple-third-person POV riddled with errors: a mistake rather than a choice.

Done right, omniscient immediately clues the reader into the POV.  It also helps to have a narrator with a distinctive voice, as in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Or the narrator can tell us up front that he or she is telling a story that took place many years ago, as George Eliot does in Mill on the Floss.

But however it is done, a good writer will know and honor the distiction between the omniscient and 3^rd person points of view.

Why Couldn't I Write It?

As I mentioned in my last post, I had intended to write a story about a girl living in the Pullman District of Chicago during  the Pullman strike of 1894, but I just couldn’t get the plot to flesh out. So what went wrong?

When writing historical fiction, research information about both facts and experiences is necessary to create a realistic story. I love memoirs, letters, and “as told to” accounts because they give you the color and emotional content that makes history come alive. Facts about the Pullman District and the Pullman strike were both easy to come by, but lived experiences have eluded me.

It isn’t as if I haven’t tried. There are newspaper and magazine articles and a propaganda booklet about all the wonderful amenities provided to residents, but I couldn’t find anything that provided insight into their daily thoughts, feelings, and experiences.

Have I given up on the idea? Not entirely. I’ll take the Historic Pullman House Tour in October and continue looking for better resources. But if this story doesn’t want to be written, I’ll just move on to the next one—again.

When the Ideas Flow

My older brother has Parkinson’s Disease, and back in March he fell and ended up in a nursing home with much of his memory gone. At the time, I had three ideas for as yet unwritten middle-grade historicals and was almost ready to start one about a girl living in Chicago’s Pullman District during the 1894 Pullman strike.

As I have written in previous posts, Donald’s situation made me realize that I should work on my memoirs before anything happened to my own memory. So I set the Pullman novel aside for a while.

I’m just about finished with the part of my memoirs that covers my early years, and the latter years are better documented and less likely to be lost to my children if they don’t get written up right away. As a result, I had begun working on the outline for the Pullman book. I had the setting and the basic character arc but was having trouble coming up with the plot. I couldn’t even seem to force it.

The book after that was to be about a girl living and working on the Erie Canal. My anticipated timing had me beginning it sometime this winter, but that isn’t a great time for a research trip to New York, and I had already planned the trip for August.

There was no reason to postpone it, so Roland and I went as planned. We just returned, and the ideas have been flowing like the canal itself. Actually, the canal is rather sluggish, so that may not be a good analogy. But the ideas for the Erie Canal book started flowing even though I wasn’t ready for them yet. By the time I returned I had the story setting, the protagonist’s character arc, most of the important characters, some of the backstory, and a well-developed plot.

It became clear to me that I’m meant to write the Erie Canal book next. If I had a contract for the Pullman book, I would be agonizing about it right now. But because I have the flexibility to pick and choose my projects as circumstances dictate, I can put that one aside until later and work on Muddy Waters first.

I wouldn’t turn down a three-book contract, but sometimes there are advantages to not being sought-after.

__________

The image at the head of this post shows a painting by Edward Lamson Henry called “Round the Bend” portraying passenger travel along the Erie Canal around 1836. Almost every museum along the canal had a copy. The date the painting was created is unknown, but E.L. Henry died in 1919 and the image is in the public domain.